It’s astonishing, but true: approximately 75% of the world’s books are in-copyright, but out-of-print. That can make things pretty difficult for people who want to find those books and read and enjoy them. Not to mention for the authors and publishers who created them and want to sell them and see them accessed and valued.

Yesterday morning in Paris, Google and Hachette Livre, one of France’s largest publishers, signed a Memorandum of Understanding that both companies believe will breathe new life into Hachette’s catalogue of dormant and commercially unavailable books. Within six months, we aim to sign a more detailed agreement which we believe will benefit French authors, publishers, booksellers, researchers, academics and the reading public - and will increase public access to cultural works.

Under the terms of the MoU, Hachette will determine which of its out-of-print works it wants scanned; these books will then be scanned by Google and made searchable via Google Books. Hachette will decide which books are to be made available for purchase via Google Editions. Hachette and Google will also be able to make these books available for other services.

Finally, French booksellers will be able to sell Hachette’s out-of-print works electronically and Hachette intends to make digital copies of scanned works available to public institutions such as the Bibliotheque Nationale de France - thus contributing to the growing corpus of French culture available online.

This might just be a first step, but it’s an important one to us, and to Hachette. We’re keen to work with the creative industries to find new business models and new solutions for increasing the value of public access to cultural works. We hope to sign similar MOUs with other publishers throughout France.

1 comment
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It is a piece of good news, and I hope further agreements can be made with other publishers across Europe. Google Books has become an important tool for researchers, especially in tracking down out-of-print specialized literatue, and an increased coverage will make it an even more powerful help. Perhaps in a few years' time, the long wait for ILL may become a distant memory.

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